I feel so untethered not writing in here. My days are so jam-packed, though… Every evening is occupied with running, working on a website or writing a post for Spannerhead. Or working on something around the house. It’s so hectic, and I feel productive, which I suppose is the draw, but… It takes its toll, especially on my diligence in writing in here. Truth be told, I’m half-hoping Spannerhead tanks so I can pull the plug and devote more time and energy to saying what needs to be said in here.

Signed up for the NCSU alumni directory today. It was almost heart-stopping to browse through the directory and scan the names of people with whom so many emotions and memories are associated:

Been talking with Aaron more lately. I’m ashamed to say I’ve let our friendship languish over the years, shades of what happened when I was in college during his final year of high school and we didn’t see each other much, except that this time the distance is much greater and our respective activity levels are much higher. But while it may be more difficult for us to casually get together and play tennis and shoot the breeze like we used to, there are definitely many means of communication I can avail myself of, ones that I haven’t used, sadly.

But lately our friendship has been picking up a bit. He’s decided to get back into tinkering with cars, which naturally opens up a huge common ground for us to talk about. A couple of months ago, he bought a 2nd-generation RX-7 (a blue example of the type was his first car), fixed it up and flipped it, and subsequently purchased his dream car: a 3rd-generation RX-7.

While it’s not necessarily my dream car, it’s certainly in the top five, and it’s a car he and I have lusted after for years. He got a good deal on the car he bought, but it was in particularly poor condition, so he’s got his work cut out for him in terms of restoring it. It definitely gives us something to talk about, though. And of course, it’s not that we couldn’t (or shouldn’t) talk about other, more “weighty” things, but having a conversational point-of-entry definitely greases the wheels, so to speak.

I’ve been trying to write a bit more lately, too. Any time I find myself in the position of not having written consistently for a while and trying to pick back up, I inevitably ponder the “scope” of my journal, how long it’s lasted, the memories it contains, and so on. And between thinking about that and musings on the “resumption” of my friendship with Aaron, there’s been a convergence of sorts between the areas. That is to say, my journal does contain a wealth of memory; however, it only goes back so far, to December 2000, and there are many gaps and fits and starts. Friends like Aaron, who have known me for ages, “contain” memories of their own, and provide a link to my past just as strong as, and that reaches farther back than my journal does. It’s almost like the act of having friends fleshes us out an individuals, connects us with our past and illuminates our present through all those “remember whens” we share when we converse. There are so many details he recalls that I’ve forgotten, or never noticed about events we both witnessed, and the same is true of me for him.

Of course, friendship accomplishes many things besides just allowing us to reminisce. But for me, the recent ruminations do provide a sort of “grounding” for the idea of having “history” with someone. It’s not such an ethereal concept any more, and I realize its importance in light of my need to be tethered in time. There are few things more unsettling to me than the thought of being “weightless in time,” of losing my bearings with respect to my past (good and bad events alike), of falling off the slope I’ve climbed so far, through my 32 years of life. So among a myriad of other ways, I’m tremendously grateful for friendship in that.

Fall ’96, blaring out of the PA system at the North Carolina State Fair. On the top of the Ferris wheel with Aaron, Jason, Cara and Natalie. Hot day, sticky painted plastic seat. Hearing the screams and yells from the pirate ship ride nearby. High school feelings, posturing, uncertainty, unnamed desires… Wanting the girls on the ride to like you, but you wouldn’t date them if they did; it would just be some kind of validation. But then again, you don’t know what you’d do; you haven’t even thought that far through the whole thing; all you know is the yearning for something. Thoughts about family, school, the future and the all-encompassing activity that was Odyssey of the Mind. Velcro sandals, khaki shorts and a nerdy, patterned polo shirt.

I often wish my journal entries went back that far. I have a few hand-written entries from a senior year English class assignment, but that’s about it. All I have is what’s in my head.